PAGES

Thursday, August 12, 2010

FORGOTTEN BOOKS ~ CROWN: THE SWEET AND SOUR KILL!

With the eminent e-book reprise of his seminal western series Edge, written under the pseudonym George Gilmore, prolific author Terry Harknett is enjoying being in the spotlight once again.

The leader of the posse known as The Piccadilly Cowboys – a group of British writers of fast and violent westerns during the ‘70s – Harknett was the fastest typewriter of them all – fanning out book after book in not only his most popular series, the ultra-violent Edge, but also the Adam Steele series and many of the early Jubal Cain titles. My favorite Harknett western series, however, is the six books he wrote in the lesser know Undertaker series.

Aside from his westerns, however, this current revival of interest in Harknett’s work made me go digging for another, more contemporary series, written under his own name.

CROWN: THE SWEET AND SOUR KILL

John Crown. If he wasn’t a cop, he’d be a killer – and in seething Hong Kong, he’s both!

His name is John Crown, and his beat is Hong Kong. He's tough, bitter, a bastard with nothing to lose, because all that's ever mattered to him is already gone. Nobody tells him what to do or how to do it, and depending on the side you're on, he's either the best or worst cop in the Colony. He drinks, kills, and loves with the same cold-blooded savagery, and anyone who crosses him pays for it.

Australian detective John Crown penetrates the bamboo curtain in a welter of sex, violence, blood and gore.

The three books in the Crown series are kick-ass examples of straight forward action writing. There is not a wasted word, or emotion, this is pulp-style writing as it was meant to be – fast, furious, and most of all, entertaining.

For some reason, the second book in the series is the hardest to find, but The Sweet And Sour Kill can still be picked up relatively inexpensively and is a great way to enjoy a couple of hours with Harknett’s writing while waiting for the e-book debut of Edge: The Loner.

4 comments:

You know I've never read these - I'm gonna have to search high and low to find these. That second cover is brilliant - naked bird always find favour with me. Seriously though, Terry is a great writer whatever the genre.